How to Prepare for Salesforce Beta Exams
I recently had the opportunity to take three different Salesforce beta exams related to Salesforce Architecture. Salesforce beta exams contain a larger set of questions than standard tests and allow participants to add their feedback during the exam. Salesforce studies the exam results and decides on a final set of questions before making the test generally available. Beta exams are free to take, but you don’t find out the results straight away. I took the test in February and expect to find out the results in early April. If you pass the exam, you will receive the certification.
If you’re planning on taking a Salesforce beta exam related to architecture, I highly recommend studying these topics to get ready.
Salesforce Certified Integration Architecture Designer – BETA
- Integration patterns: https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/sfdc/pdf/integration_patterns_and_practices.pdf
- Security, the various ways you can authenticate against the platform (SSL,TSL): https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=named_credentials_about.htm&language=en_US&type=0
- Email services
- Loading large data volumes with ETL tools: https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Best_Practices_for_Deployments_with_Large_Data_Volumes
- Rest API/SOAP API/ Bulk API differences and when to use each of them
- Outbound messages
- Salesforce connect
- External IDs
- OAuth 2.0/ OAuth 4.0
- Heroku Connect
Sample questions:
– A lot of questions are based on scenarios and if you can understand and learn this PDF, you should be able to answer most of them.
– Different way of integration: SOAP, REST, Outbound messages
– How to trigger outbound messages
– What is Salesforce Continuation
– How the attachments are captured coming via email (Email handler)
– What is Heroku connect
– What are the different ways of securing integrations (SSL/ TSL)
– Loading LDV with ETL tools
Salesforce Certified Data Architecture and Management Designer – BETA
- Object Relationships
- Large Data Volumes: https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Best_Practices_for_Deployments_with_Large_Data_Volumes
- ETL tools
- API Metadata
- Force.com Migration Tool
- How to test Large volume data in sandboxes
Sample Questions:
– How to deploy external object with Force.com Migration tool
– Metadata API commands to deploy/retrieve metadata
– What is the command to Quick deploy / Run test classes in Force.com migration tool
– What types of testing is used in Salesforce (Stress testing is not used)
– How to deploy unsupported metadata changes into prod? (change management and governance)
– How to keep track of changes done in prod and maintain it during the deployments
– What types of sandbox is good for Integration testing, User acceptance testing, User training
– What sandbox/org can be used to develop app exchange applications
– Project team roles (Center of Excellence, Architecture Review Board, Executive Sponsor, Steering Committee…)
– What is CoE Center of Excellence and what do they do
– Provide scenarios where waterfall/agile project methodology is better to use? (ie. Big project/small project)
– Salesforce org architecture (Single Org, Multi Org and how to make two different salesforce orgs interact with each other)
Salesforce Certified Development Lifecycle and Deployment Designer – BETA
- CoE
- Change governance
- App Exchange app development
- Development lifecycle
- Version Control
- Continuous integration
- Waterfall/Agile development
- Sandbox types and for what purpose each of them should be used for (performance testing, integration testing)
- Metadata API
- Different deployment tools (Force.com IDE, Force.com Migration tool, Change set…)
Sample Questions:
– A lot of questions around the Large Data Volume Best practises(given a scenario how to implement/achieve it)
– How to deploy external object with Force.com migration tool
– External object differnt lookup types
– ETL tools and differences
The trickiest exam for me was Certified Integration Architecture Designer. To get extra prepared for this one, I recommend reading the pdf I provided at least twice as it will give you a good understanding of the scenarios used.
Good luck to you all! ☺
